On 1st May, 1955, Stirling Moss won the Mille Miglia in the record time of ten hours, seven minutes and 48 seconds at the wheel of the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR. Moss and his navigator, motor race journalist Denis Jenkinson, ran a total of six reconnaissance laps before the event, enabling "Jenks" to make course notes on a scroll of paper 15 feet long that he used to give directions to Moss during the race by a coded system of hand signals. Moss and Jenkinson were competing against drivers with a large amount of local knowledge of the route, so the reconnaissance laps were considered an equaliser, rather than an advantage. Moss and Jenkinson arrived in Brescia in their Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR with the now famous No. 722 car, setting the race record at an average of 157.651 km/h which was fastest ever on the 1,597km course.

Mercedes SLR McLaren 722

50 years later, in 2005, Mercedes teamed up with McLaren to produce a new 722. The carbon fiberre grand tourismo body design and the classical styling elements from the legendary SLR racing car of 1955 were blended to create the fantastic Mercedes SLR McLaren 722. Its high performance 5.5 liter V8 supercharged engine can accelerate the car to 62 mph in 3.8 seconds, reach 180 mph in just 28.8 seconds and go on to a top speed of 207mph. Taking much of its aerodynamic design and cutting edge technology from the McLaren Formula One team, the SLR is one of the fastest road going sports cars.

The Scalextric Models

The famous No.722 car from 1955 driven by Moss is modeled in excellent detail including exceptional detail to the cockpit area which of course includes Jenkinson in the navigator’s seat. The modern McLaren 722 is a variant of the super-car which incorporates a special front air splitter, new wheels and, of course, ‘722’ discretely positioned on its front wings.